Christina Stephens' 'lego leg' video inspires others

WHEN Christina Stephens put her Lego-building skills to work last month to make a prosthetic leg, she became an internet sensation.

Ms Stephens, 31, lost her left foot in an accident this winter and decided to combine her clinical expertise as an occupational therapist with her own experience of losing a limb to help others dealing with amputations.

Ms Stephens, who is small, athletic and seemingly always upbeat, began a series of YouTube videos and a Facebook page under the name "AmputeeOT," in which she addresses issues that many new amputees struggle with.

Among them are how to swim with and without a prosthetic, deal with phantom limb pain, and clean an amputation site and prosthetic liner.

But it was her construction of a prosthetic leg out of hundreds of Lego pieces that made her an internet star.